CALL FOR PAPERS: 

Conference panel “Cross-National and Comparative History of Science
Education”

At the 4th European Society for the History of Science congress,
Barcelona (Spain), 18-20 November 2010

BACKGROUND

This session assesses the need of further cross-national and
comparative work in history of science, medicine and technology
prompted by current perceptions of disciplinary crisis, around
questions such as “big pictures”, European centres and peripheries,
the rise of global history, and the integration of non-Western science
in the historical canon. It intends to do so, by focusing on the study
of science education, and by promoting interdisciplinary communication
between two subjects which rarely interact  (the history of science
and the history of education).
Cross-National comparison was a major driving force in the
nineteenth-century organization of education. Educationists,
scientists and students circulated across national boundaries and
compared different educational systems, producing accounts which
contributed to inform educational reforms in their own national or
local contexts. In the same period, the history of education emerged
as a discipline aimed at illuminating contemporary educational
research and organization through a historical perspective.
Cross-National comparison was a key method, which, in spite of various
epistemological challenges has survived up to our days, giving rise to
well-established academic fields such as comparative education.

Historians of education have often approached the study of science
from the point of view of institutions and curricula, producing in
certain cases large scale international comparisons, and mainly
focusing on primary education, and (increasingly) on secondary
education. In contrast, historians of science have favoured tight
accounts of pedagogy and training in local context, and commonly
focused on higher education. In the last decade, some major works in
this field have produced international pictures on science pedagogy,
through the study of circulation of scientists and pedagogical tools.
However, approaches are still too often restricted to local or
national contexts, as they are in the history of science at large.

AIMS

The aim of this session is to contribute to the historiographical
development of the history of science and the history of education, by
presenting papers dealing with more than one national context in
comparative fashion, and including historiographical and
methodological reflection on the characteristics, advantages, and
limitations of this approach. 
The purpose of this session is neither to break national boundaries,
nor to reaffirm them, but to discuss about them and through them and
to show how cross-national comparison offers more accurate results
than traditional approaches –explicitly or implicitly– restricted to
the nation. 
Papers may not cover a whole country and can instead focus on
comparison of regions or more local unities of analysis.
Intra-national comparisons will be admitted if justified, although we
will favour cross-national comparisons. 

Papers are invited to deal in comparative and cross-national
perspective with the following objects and themes:

-	Pedagogical practices
-	Curricula
-	Pedagogical tools (teaching collections, pedagogical diagrams, pen
and paper technologies, etc.)
-	Institutions
-	Examination frameworks
-	Textbooks
-	Teaching spaces
-	Teachers
-	Students
-	Comparisons by contemporary circulating or transnational actors
(teachers, students, educationists)
-	Interactions between Pedagogy and Research

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

Abstracts for this session should include justification of What is
going to be compared, Why, and How, and arguments explaining how you
think that your comparative and cross-national analysis might
contribute to change the current historiography of the topic tackled
in your paper. 
Due to the complex nature of producing comparative research on more
than one national context, collaboration between scholars from
different countries –although not strictly required – is encouraged
and always welcomed. Analogously, we seek to promote collaboration
between historians of science and historians of education.

Please, include name and affiliation, and a 300-word abstract, making
clear the objects of your comparative and cross-national study and the
relevance to this session (What, Why, How, Historiographical
Arguments). Send it as a Word or RTF document to Josep Simon
([log in to unmask]).  

DEADLINE:  20th January 2010

Contacts previous to the deadline are more than welcome. If you intend
to submit a paper for this session and wish to discuss your
contribution, do not hesitate to contact Josep Simon
([log in to unmask]).

For information on the conference and registration deadlines see:
http://4eshs.iec.cat/


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Dr. Josep Simon
Assistant Lecturer in History of Science
Institut d'Història de la Ciència
i Documentació "López Piñero"
Palau Cerveró
Plaça Cisneros, 4
46003 València (Spain)
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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